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Amour and Emperor: DVD Reviews

Amour won the Palme d’Or and Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar

Emmanuelle Riva in a scene from Amour. (AP)

Thu., Aug. 15, 2013

Michael Haneke’s dramatic two-hander, the Palme d’Or winner at Cannes 2012, is a quietly devastating illustration of how tough the “for better or worse” marriage pact can be when “or worse” occurs. An elderly couple (veteran French actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) are put to the test when the wife suffers one stroke and then another, robbing her first of speech and then mobility. Together they must find a way to endure as the end approaches. It’s one of the simplest and arguably the most passionate films of Haneke’s incredible career, a deserved winner of the most recent Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar.

Extras include a Q and A with Haneke and a making-of featurette.

Peter Webber accurately depicts Japan’s physical and spiritual devastation in the wake of the Second World War’s twin nuclear assaults, the firebombing of Tokyo and the nation’s subsequent surrender to Allied forces, the latter beginning with an Aug. 15, 1945 radio address by Emperor Hirohito.

But the film falls prey to the temptations endemic to historical docudrama: the desire to pack a miniseries’ worth of events into one feature-length film, with romance tossed in for added appeal. The film has the additional burdens of a hectoring tone and a dearth of emotion. Blame the leaden screenplay.

Emperor fails to fully exploit the presence of Tommy Lee Jones, who as Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander for the Allied Powers, gives the film what small combustion it possesses.

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